


Stagnation Point

by zoemathemata



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Drowning, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 10:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoemathemata/pseuds/zoemathemata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas has a meeting scheduled with the Fae in the Underworld. The only way to get him there is for Sam and Dean to drown him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stagnation Point

The instructions for the ritual were clear and Castiel painstakingly reviewed them with the Winchesters.

Really, there was no mistaking them and very little room for interpretation.

“Yeah, I got all that,” Dean snapped, moving slightly out of the way so Sam could break open another bag of ice and pour it into the large aluminum tub full of water in the center of the abandoned barn. “I just don’t get why it has to be _you_.”

Castiel yanked easily at the knot of his tie, loosening it and then sliding it out from the collar with a whip-fast crack of his wrist. “The Fae have a… disdain for mortals. They would not even give you the chance to speak.”

“News flash, Cas, you’re almost human yourself.”

Dean didn’t want to to toss it in his face, but if kept Cas from doing this, then he would.

“The distance between ‘almost’ and ‘certainly’ is enough room in which to negotiate. They have agreed to meet me and that is already a good sign.” Cas’ voice was low and flat.

Sam broke open another bag of ice and tossed it in. “Dean, he’s right.”

“You stay out of it,” Dean said, jabbing his finger at Sam.

“It has to be one of us,” Sam argued back. Castiel took off his trench coat and suit jacket together and paused, not sure what to do with them. Sam took them and folded them carefully before setting them off to the side.

“No shit, Sherlock. I just don’t get why it has to be him.”

“Well, maybe because for once, you don’t have to be the one to fall on the sword,” Sam shot back, pitching the empty plastic ice bag to the dirt floor.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Dean rounded on Sam, stepping closer and getting into his space.

“It means that you’re gonna have to suck it up and be on the non-martyrdom side of the fence this time.” Sam poked a finger into Dean’s chest.

“What are you talking about?”

“Sam, perhaps I could have a moment to speak with Dean.”

Both brothers turned to glare at Castiel who stood calmly by the deep silver tub. He’d removed his shoes and socks while Sam and Dean were preoccupied with each other and the sight of his pale feet poking out from the bottom of his dark slacks was jarring.

“Please,” said Castiel as both of them stood there frozen. His toes curled almost nervously and Dean wondered if he ever did that when his shoes were on and no one had noticed before.

Sam nodded. “I’ll be right back. Five minutes,” he warned.

Both Dean and Castiel watched the back of Sam as he left, waiting for the barn door to close behind him before turning back to each other.

“Seriously, it doesn't have to be you,” Dean argued hotly.

“Yes it does, Dean,” Castiel said simply. “You already know the reasons it must be me very well.”

He did know them well enough. They’d been having this fight off and on for the last 3 hours. Although he’d lost a fair amount of grace, Castiel still wasn’t yet human and the Fae had at least agreed to meet him. Castiel was also the most knowledgeable about the Fae and the least likely to make a fatal faux pas. He had counseled Dean and Sam that the Fae were extremely rigid in what they considered acceptable behavior and learning all their rules and customs would take too much time for the Winchesters.

Dean fisted his hands at his sides and looked away from Castiel’s stare.

It was also reasonable to assume, Castiel had told them in his low, gravelly voice, that he would probably be the easiest of the three to resuscitate if the Fae did not revive him after the drowning, since the Fae would only agree to meet in the land of the Dead.

“I don’t want it to be you,” Dean said finally still not able to drag his eyes back to Cas’.

“I wouldn’t want it to be you, either.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the blue of Castiel’s eyes. Intent and precise, focused on his face and even though they were like gravity wells, pulling him in, he couldn't make himself look.

“I just… Because you… Maybe I… or if…” he couldn’t get anything else past his throat and his fingernails dug into his palm. “Maybe we…”

He felt one of Cas’ warm hands slide over his fist, careful and light.

“I would like that.” Cas’ hand fell back at his side.

Dean took in a rough breath, his lungs hitching twice on it before he pushed it out in a quick exhale.

“Okay,” he said, nodding his head once.

Five minutes later, Cas was sitting in the deep aluminum vat up to his chest in water. Ice chunks clacked together dully and the sound grated on Dean’s nerves. Cas was down to his undershirt and slacks, having bizarrely kept them on and neither Winchester had been able to utter the words ‘Don’t you want to take your pants off?’ to an angel.

“I will try not to struggle. I plan to breathe in the water as soon as I am under, but I’m unsure as to how this body will react to the lack of oxygen. You may have to use quite a bit of force to keep me submerged.”

Dean didn’t say anything and he wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t have anything to add, or he couldn’t form the words.

Sam nodded, his solemn expression matching Castiel’s.

“Time is different on the otherside, and the Fae have the ability to alter it further, so do not be overly concerned if the meeting appears to go long. They have indicated they will return me when we are finished speaking.”

They’d gone over this already and Dean didn’t know if Cas was repeating it for their sake or his.

“We got it,” Sam said.

Cas’ long, pale fingers were curled around the edges of the tub casually, and he pulled them under the water silently.

“I’m ready,” he said.

Dean opened his mouth to say something, anything, but before he could, Cas slid down, under the cold liquid with a slick sluice.

Dean’s hands followed him down, pressing on his chest lightly and at the first contact, Cas opened his eyes underwater. Through the ice, Dean could only blearily make out his features, but there was no mistaking Cas’ even stare.

Dean could feel that he hadn’t inhaled the water yet.

Sam was leaning over the other side of the tub, his own hands underwater, one on Cas hip, the other on his shoulder.

“You need to inhale,” Sam said loudly.

Castiel’s eyes moved over to Sam, his eyebrows drawing together. An air bubble escaped his lips.

“Inhale,” repeated Sam.

Cas’ mouth was open. Dean could feel Cas body tense under his fingers. Castiel’s eyes snapped back over to Dean and he couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink. He felt the intent in Cas’ body a split second before he acted on it.

“Sam,” he said warningly. It was all he could get out.

“Oh, fuck.”

Cas started struggling, hands coming up to grapple around Dean’s, fingers digging into his wrists. Cas feet kicked the tub, water started sloshing over the edge. Heavy splashes mixed in with the dull thud of feet hitting the aluminum. Dean pushed down as hard as he could, keeping Cas back against the floor of the tub, using all his body weight. His fingers curled into the fabric of Cas shirt and he ignored the nearly bone-snapping pressure of Castiel’s grip on his wrists. He could see Sam out of the corner of his eye, pressing down just as hard, face twitching and grimacing with the effort.

One of Castiel’s hands came up and connected solidly with Dean’s chin, whip-cracking his head back, making him snap his teeth together hard. The force of it ran through his jaw and settled in the vertebrae of his neck with a painful twitch. He tilted his head back down and met Cas’ stare, still implacably focused on him.

It was less than a minute of struggling, but it felt like so much longer. The sounds of water, of Dean and Sam both grunting with effort, of Cas’ feet hitting the tub. Cas got slower and the splashes were softer. Finally, Castiel’s hand pushed at Dean’s chest hard. Then again, but with less effort and one more time before his hand simply fell off to the side, the bones of his wrist hitting the sharp edge of the tub with a ‘thwack.’

Cas’ arm slid back into the water. The fingers of his other hand uncurled slowly from Dean’s wrist and joined its owner’s body in the tub. The water sloshed back and forth, each wave losing a little bit more of its kinetic energy.

Castiel’s eyes stayed open, focused on Dean, twisted and distorted by the ice floating in the tub.

Dean could hear Sam breathing heavily next to him, could hear the labour of his own lungs as their bodies worked to replace the oxygen they expended.

Cas stayed submerged, his lungs full of water, weighing him down to the bottom.

Dean’s hands were cold and he couldn't make his fingers unclench from where they had dug in tightly to Cas’ white shirt. Slowly, he realized that Sam’s hands were on his, uncurling his hands and pulling them out of the water.

“You okay?” Sam asked, handing him a ragged towel.

“Fine.”

***

It was half an hour.

Half an hour of standing there unable to look anywhere else but the tub where Cas’ hands had strangely floated to the surface of the water.

Followed by part of his face. Cas’ lips were slightly parted, tinged blue at the very edges, blurring into a purpling pink. It looked like a bad makeup job. It was creepy and Dean couldn’t _not_ look.

For a ridiculous, self-indulgent moment, he wished he would be sick. You see it all the time in he movies or tv shows. Fantastically heroic character does something that was necessary yet so repulsing to himself, to his moral fiber, that he vomits against his will.

But Dean wasn’t the puking type. And he’d done far too much in his life ( _and death_ ) to even pretend he was squeamish or had a decent moral fiber to be ruffled.

He was far too good at doing what needed to be done.

Sam had tromped around nervously, tidying things that weren’t out of place. Checking and rechecking the wards and sigils Cas had drawn, sketching copies of them in their new journal.

Neither of them said anything.

The silence was heavy and oddly Cas-shaped in Dean’s head; a strange null void in the shape of wings.

Dean swore if he listened hard enough, in the quiet, he could hear his watch ticking.

At one point, he lifted it up to his ear to hear the soft _snick, snick, snick_ of the second hand rotating ignorantly.

Fucking water-resistant watch.

Cas came back to life with a loud, gasping breath, followed by choking and sloshing water and Dean was in the middle of it, hauling him upright in the tub, getting soaked again; Castiel coughing and spitting on Dean’s hands.

Between him and Sam they got Castiel out of the tub and onto the hard-packed dirt floor of the barn, the dust turning to silty mud as it sucked up the water dripping off Castiel.

He clutched at Dean as his lungs, unfamiliar with breathing after a half hour, worked to expel the water and infuse the fragile tissue with oxygen. Dean wanted to reassure Cas that he was fine, that it was all okay now but the words were stuck somewhere between his voice-box and his lips. It was left to Sam to repeat the calming platitudes that the Winchesters so often fell back on when there just wasn’t anything else to say. Low murmured ‘you’re okay’ and ‘just breathe’ and ‘take it slow, that’s it’ falling easily from Sam’s lips.

All Dean could do was stare.

Cas stared back at him.

Dean bolted.

He didn’t have anywhere to go. He found himself back at the abandoned farmhouse they had taken up residence in, pacing restlessly from room to room, looking for something to do, something to hit, something to break.

He spied a busted up chair and smashed it to the ground, breaking it into smaller pieces and then used one of the legs to break a large hole in the plaster and drywall of the divider between the kitchen and the dining room.

He jerked at the unexpected touch of a hand at his neck, spinning around swinging the splintered wood. Cas caught it easily in his palm with a loud smack and pulled it from Dean’s grip, dropping it on the floor.

“I’m fine,” Cas said lowly, his voice barely above a whisper. He rested one of his hands solidly on Dean’s left shoulder. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

The tension started slowly seeping out of Dean’s body. “Yeah,” he breathed, his gaze locked on the floor. He placed right hand on top of Cas’ on his shoulder. Castiel’s fingers were still cold but they were firm and real under his touch. He felt Cas grip tighten slightly on his shoulder and he pressed his own fingers back in return.

“Okay.”  



End file.
